Book Review: Red Robin vol. #4: 7 Days of Death

Book: Red Robin volume #4: 7 Days of Death (issues #18-26 and Teen Titans #92) by Fabian Nicieza with illustrations by Marcus To, inks by Ray McCarthy and color by Guy Major

Rating: 5 stars

Review:

I read the single issues instead of the trade.

These were the last issues of Red Robin before DC Comics rebooted and the series was cancelled. As with the other issues, I thought this was a very good series, the writing was strong and the artwork was great. Tim had grown into his own and had turned into an amazing hero.

This last volume had Red Robin going to Russia to keep tabs on a Russian Lex Luthor wannabe, Viktor Mikalek and ended up running into an old friend, Red Star (Leonid Kovar). All of this resulted in Red Robin, Tam Fox, Lonnie Machin and Russian vigilante Promise getting their minds trapped into the Ünternet.

Red Robin also found himself having to deal with the mercenary Catman who was hired by Mikalek to go after Tim Drake and Tam Fox. Catman wasn't the only problem, the Calculator was involved leaving Tim to seek a little help from the Teen Titans and Robin (Damian Wayne). They found themselves in Europe having to stop the Calculator's deadly robots. This issue of TT was also Damian's last issues as a full time member of the team. The Ünternet continued to keep Tim busy, having him to deal with a team of Technicolor villains.

I'm not sure if issue #22 is included in the trade but it's a cross over story with Batman #22 and Gotham City Sirens #22. As with the other two books, Red Robin along with Batman (Dick Grayson) and Catwoman were being judged by Azrael to see if they were worthy and with Gotham City on the line will the three of them be able to save the city. This was the first story in the cross over and had Tim trying to save the corrupt Gotham City Mayor Hady while trying to figure out his own thoughts about his faith.

The last four issues focused on Tim trying to stop a hit out on Tam's father Lucius Fox. To get to the bottom of it, he made it seem as if Lucius' was dead. This later put a strain on his relationship with Tam since she had no idea her father was still alive. Tim also had to get a little help from Black Bat (Cassandra Cain) when he got himself caught by Promise and her scary crazy sister who wanted to get something special from Red Robin before she killed him. In the last and final issue, Tim had concocted a plan to murder Captain Boomerang, even though he didn't go through with it at the end Batman (Bruce Wayne) was still mad at him for even creating the situation in the first place.

On that last page, I can see how Nicieza was trying to set Tim up to be more independent and separate himself a bit from the Batman family. I remember reading a few interviews where Nicieza had said he wanted Tim to try to go out there on his own and also he was going to have Tim work on trying to repair his broken relationship/friendship with Tam but of course that never got to happened since this series was cancelled.

Something I thought was really cool was Tim's newly renovated home and secret lair. The way he accesses his Red Robin cave is by flipping a switch in the fish tank. That made me think of that scene from Batman Returns where Bruce does something similar.

I thought this was an amazing series and it was sad that it ended. I would have loved to see the next phase in Tim's heroic journey. And with the new 52 Tim "Drake" in the Teen Titans series** being a completely different character, I considered this character as being shelved and maybe one day he will return to the DCU. But for now he's another missing character.


** Soon, I will be posting my reviews for the new 52 Teen Titans of the issues I read before I stopped reading this series. I'm trying to catch up on my comic book reviews.